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Title APPROPRIATION OF OSCAR WILDE’S PLAYS IN CLASSICAL URDU TRANSLATION: A STUDY INTO INVISIBILITY

Author(s) HAMED HUSSAIN SHAH

Abstract The present study explores the process of appropriation of Oscar Wilde’s selected plays in classical Urdu translation in connection with invisibility. Appropriation, in its most characteristic form takes possession of original text and sets up an ascendency of target language and culture. The study reveals that the translators have followed such deforming tendencies as: expansion, rationalization, clarification, omission, ennoblement, quantitative impoverishment, destruction of the original at different levels, and adjustment. The researcher has also explored the effect of appropriation on translation that mostly appears to be in the form of invisibility at different levels i.e., invisibility of words, phrases, sentences, expression, message of the original text, and the translators themselves. The researcher has meta-textually analyzed the source and the target texts and evaluated the way appropriation entails invisibility. For the research design, the researcher has followed Antoine Berman’s model of deformation to bring out the elements of appropriation. For the explanation of each extracts at word and sentence level, the researcher has applied Eugene Nida’s principles of correspondence and his two basic orientations in translation: formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence. For broader conceptual understanding, the researcher has incorporated Lawrence Venuti’s notions of foreignization and domestication along with his concept of invisibility. The concept of invisibility provides a larger canvas for understanding the process of translation when the translators try to produce a fluent target text. The study shows that the combined weight of appropriation and invisibility has, at times, led to a domestication of the source text and a considerable dislocation of its linguistic and cultural implications. Lastly, to elaborate the notion of appropriation in the process of translation, the researcher has followed Gerard Genette’s concept of paratext to study initial and final pages of the source and the target texts that includes promotional adds, reviews, prefaces, copyright consents, and has drawn a comparison between the original and the translation.

Type Thesis/Dissertation MS

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Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2021-03-08

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